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Generative Prompts
Brainstorming Questions instead of Answers * Which questions, if answered, would make this problem much easier? * What kind of evidence would be relevant to someone making decisions about this? * What kind of clarifying questions would an expert ask if you were describing this problem to them? * Are there preexisting sets of questions/checklists for this problem domain? * Which tests do we have available and what kind of questions do they answer? * What questions could we ask clients/stakeholders? * What are some simple/bad ways to solve this problem and can they be improved? Conversational Prompts * What part of this problem seems most relevant to you? * What part do you find yourself unusually attentive to? * How can we find out where our models of the problem overlap? * How can we find out where our models make different predictions? Can we bet? * Journalist questions: who, what, where, why, when, how. Reframing the Problem * What metaphors does the problem description rely on? What if we used different ones? * What if we permuted some of the words in the problem description with a thesaurus? * What if the problem turned out to be easy? * What lucky fluke would lead to you getting what you want? Can we make any of those more likely? * How would you solve the problem with arbitrary power? What are the desiderata it would satisfy if there were no tradeoffs? * What situations does this remind me of? * What would someone awesome do to prepare for a serious effort at solving the problem? * Is there a smaller/toy version of the problem you can solve for practice? * Have you tried sharpening the problem without looking for a solution? * Have you tried granularizing more? * Have you tried dumping your thought cache and approaching the problem in open mode? * Have you tried filling your attention with the problem? * Have you tried propagating constraints from the object level? * Give 3 concrete examples, give 3 counter examples. * Map the idea space instead of trying to solve the problem. * Describe the problem instead of explaining it. * What do all my efforts to solve the problem so far have in common? What am I not changing enough? * Have you tried rubber ducking impressive people? * Have you tried actually trying to solve the problem? Therapeutic/Affective Prompts * What if I woke up and the problem was solved? How would I know? What would be different? * What if it were happening to someone else? * What if I'm not responsible? * What if I took a step back from it? * Do I have any limiting beliefs around this problem? ** Hopelessness: the problem is impossible ** Helplessness: the problem is impossible for me in particular ** Worthlessness: I don't deserve the problem being solved * How is that (problematic behavior in someone else) also true of me? * Is that belief true? How would I know if it wasn't? * Where did that belief come from? * Is that belief serving me? * Is this framing of the problem helping me find solutions? * What are different ways of framing this problem? (see above) * What is (this problem) really about? * How is maintaining this problem serving me? * How do I actually feel in the moment this problem arises? * What notes of discord arise when I say 'everything about X is going perfectly'? * Do I genuinely feel curious about the problem?